Nigeria Content Online

Former
U.S. Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro won his first match in a year
on Monday, coming through a 200-minute test of his fitness with a 6-7
7-6 7-6 victory over Feliciano Lopez at the Sydney International.

The 22-year-old
Argentine has played only two tournaments since having surgery last May
on a wrist injury that hampered his Australian Open campaign last year,
losing in the first round in both.

One of those
defeats was to Lopez in Tokyo but on Monday at the Sydney Olympic
centre, wildcard Del Potro got his revenge after a monumental battle
with the sixth seeded Spaniard.

“We played a
beautiful match, very close,” said Del Potro, who will play German
Florian Mayer, a 7-5 6-0 winner over British wildcard James Ward, in
the next round.

“Feliciano is a
fantastic player on this kind of surface, and I played good tennis
again. I felt good all match, and finally I won a match (after) one
year.”

Del Potro, who won
the 2009 U.S. Open final against Roger Federer, showed great
determination after trailing by a set and again in the second set
tiebreak.

The third set was
just as close and Del Potro was forced to save six break points before
appropriately clinching victory with one of his savage flat forehands.

Ranked fifth in the
world before his injury, Del Potro said he was a long way from his best
and needed a lot more playing time to get back to that level.

“I need work to keep going in this road,” he said.

“You know, it’s a long road to be in the top 10 again, but I’m ready to try.

“I feel happy for
my victory, for everything … I really like this life, you know. If
you can play without pain, it’s much better.” Earlier, defending
champion and second seed Marcos Baghdatis pulled out of the tournament
with a groin strain.

The Cypriot, beaten
finalist at the 2006 Australian Open, said he did not want to risk
worsening the problem before the first grand slam of the year, which
starts next Monday.

“I’m a bit
disappointed,” said the world number 21. “I’m the defending champion
here and I wanted to play so much… It was not an easy one, but
sometimes you have to take decisions that are not easy.”

Stosur downs Wickmayer

In the women’s
draw, local grand slam hopeful Sam Stosur delighted the centre court
crowd by downing Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium 7-5 6-4.

The world number
six, a French Open finalist last year, will meet twice grand slam
champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the second round.

“There’s not too many rewards when you get through matches in these kinds of tournaments,” Stosur said.

“Everyone is pretty tough … We’ve played each other plenty of
times, and I’ve had wins and losses. Hopefully tomorrow I can play like
I did today, and hopefully it’ll be a good one for me.” Two other
women’s seeds had more disappointing days, fifth seed Francesca
Schiavone losing 6-7 6-1 6-2 to Russian Alisa Kleybanova and sixth seed
Jelena Jankovic also beaten in three sets, 7-5 2-6 6-3 by France’s
Aravene Rezai.